Airbus Reveals A Futuristic Car-Drone Hybrid

Traffic congestion is going to increase manifolds by 2030, and Airbus has come up with the right solution for this issue. Airbus, a company well-known for making airplanes has now teamed up with Italdesign to create Pop.Up – a car-drone hybrid which was revealed at the 87th International Geneva Motor Show that is being held from March 9th to 19th, this year.

Source: Italdesign

Airbus is not the first one to introduce such a concept. The flying car created by PAL-V is out for pre-order already, and there have been a ton more, be it the basic passenger drones or flying cars. However, Pop.Up appears like something right out of science fiction. It is a modular design capable of operation both on the ground and in the air. The new ‘passenger capsule’ is quite small like other flying vehicles. A quadcopter gets attached to the top of this capsule to lift it into the air, leaving the massive car engine behind. You can choose to travel on the ground with the traffic or in the air to fly above all the hassle.

Source: Italdesign

The entire system of the product is planned to be fully autonomous and self-driven. The vehicle is controlled by Artificial Intelligence and can carry the passengers from one place to the other when commanded by an application. It will be the first fully electric, zero-emission vehicle, designed for the sole purpose of relieving traffic congestion.

Source: Designboom

The conceptual video of the hybrid shows a passenger in the of Pop.Up who orders the vehicle to take her home. The car drives itself to the parking garage, and a large quadcopter picks this capsule up and flies the rest of the way. The same capsules can even be embedded into a kind of train, or maybe with Hyperloop.

Exciting much? Well, sadly the Pop.Up will not be in service until about 7 to 10 years, particularly due to recognition and regulatory hurdles.

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